Impossible to distinguish the sound of the ridgetop wind from the rumble of freight trains below. The stars fade. A small high cloud turns pink.
stars
2/7/2024
Cold and still all the way to the stars, which are just beginning to fade. A barred owl calls once. The hesitant footfalls of a deer coming down to drink.
8/31/2023
The full moon sits on the horizon, serenaded by cold crickets. Overhead, the Pleiades wink out one by one, leaving Jupiter alone in the crown of a locust.
8/30/2023
The last stars gutter in the dawn light. Down-hollow, a juvenile whippoorwill practices its song—only half there.
2/8/2023
An hour before sunrise, the yard is flooded with moonlight for a few moments, till the rift in the clouds drifts on to uncover a sliver of dawn sky, the last few stars.
11/1/2022
Clouds selectively erasing the stars at dawn. A strong inversion layer: traffic noise from the interstate mingles with barred owl calls.
10/7/2022
Dawn. I watch the stars fade then brighten again, as a thin veil of cloud I hadn’t noticed moves off like a lizard’s third eyelid.
9/20/2022
A clear dawn sky, with the crescent moon like Orion’s boomerang just missing Castor and Pollux. The widely scattered chirps of migrating birds.
10/28/2021
Mercury rises just as the stars begin to fade. A jet flies under it. A lone goose flies over it. I look away and lose it in the dawn sky.
10/16/2021
The last star blinks out just as rain begins to tap on the roof. A spring pepper calls. Dawn begins to seem like a possibility.
10/1/2021
Cold and clear. Stars fade as the ground fog grows, partly lit by the crescent moon, partly by the dawn.
9/6/2021
In the dark of the moon, the luminance of stars. From town, a wailing of fire sirens, their literally compelling music an eerie, out-of-sync duet.
10/1/2014
Up before dawn. A few stars glimmer through the fog. Deep in the grass, the pale lights of glowworms brightening and dimming.
11/8/2011
At 5:15, I’m startled by the dark sky, the closeness of the stars. At daybreak, seven deer stand within a stone’s throw of the porch.